Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 136, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1913 — WHY WOMEN PREDOMINATE [ARTICLE]

WHY WOMEN PREDOMINATE

Weaker Sex Possess Greater Power Than Men In Shaking Attacks of Disease. . ' ~s ■ ' : ' London wThe fact that in almost all civilized countries women outnumber men has been ascribed to the higher birth rate of girl babies; yet statistics show that 105 boys are born to every 100 girls. According to figures compiled by an European statistician, the girl has a better chance than the boy of attaining her maturity. He finds,that from the third to the fifteenth year the mortality for both sexes is the same; from the fifteenth to the nineteenth year, the critical age

for girls, the girl’s chances are slightly better than the boy’s; from the thirtieth to the thirty-fifth year the mortality among women is smaller than among meh, and it continues smaller until the seventieth year. Then for a decade and a half the sexes once more have the same chance of survival, but about eighty-five years of age woman again stands a better chance than man.

To account for this difference the statistician points out that woman has greater resilience in shaking off disease than man. It is true that the physical strength of man is greater than woman’s, but a woman’s power of endurance is more robust

One reason for this is that woman possesses a finer perception of ,her power of endurance than a man, and when her perception warns her of fatigue she stops. A man does not stop until his power is exhausted. His nervous system is not as finely organized as a woman’s, and, as Masso, the Italian physiologist, has pointed out men and women are entirely dependent on their nerves for caution not to overexert. While it is true that women more easily contract many diseases, particularly nervous and mental diseases, than men. they overcome them more easily.